When the global-warming hysteria hit its peak, no Western nation responded with as much commitment to it than Germany. Over a period of several years, the German government spent $130 billion on solar energy in an attempt to transform its energy production and use by becoming the “photovoltaic world champion.” How has that worked out? As Bjorn Lomborg writes for Slate, solar energy now accounts for a whopping 0.3% of Germany’s total power consumption after that $130 billion infusion, and forces Germans to pay far more than their Continental counterparts for their energy.

Now the Germans may lead the way to abandoning the global-warming hysteria and subsidy approach to alternative-energy economics:

Germany once prided itself on being the “photovoltaic world champion”, doling out generous subsidies—totaling more than $130 billion, according to research from Germany’s Ruhr University—to citizens to invest in solar energy. But now the German government is vowing to cut the subsidies sooner than planned and to phase out support over the next five years. What went wrong?

Subsidizing green technology is affordable only if it is done in tiny, tokenistic amounts. Using the government’s generous subsidies, Germans installed 7.5 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity last year, more than double what the government had deemed “acceptable.” It is estimated that this increase alone will lead to a $260 hike in the average consumer’s annual power bill.

According to Der Spiegel, even members of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s staff are now describing the policy as a massive money pit. Philipp Rösler, Germany’s minister of economics and technology, has called the spiraling solar subsidies a “threat to the economy.”

Lomborg recites a litany of bad outcomes from the German experiment. Thanks to carbon caps, the use of solar to even its very limited capacity hasn’t actually reduced carbon emissions at all. It merely allows other EU nations, like Portugal and Greece, to emit more carbon through coal-fired power generation at the expense of German industry. Until now, Germans pointed at the jobs created in the green-tech industries, but as Lomborg notes, those come at a hefty price tag of $175,000 per position, far more than would have been the case with normal infrastructure projects. Many of those jobs didn’t get created in Germany anyway; Germans ended up subsidizing job creation in China.

Lomborg also includes this rather telling calculation:

Moreover, this sizeable investment does remarkably little to counter global warming. Even with unrealistically generous assumptions, the unimpressive net effect is that solar power reduces Germany’s CO2 emissions by roughly 8 million metric tons—or about 1 percent – for the next 20 years. To put it another way: By the end of the century, Germany’s $130 billion solar panel subsidies will have postponed temperature increases by 23 hours.

Germany led the way into hysteria; now circumstances have forced Germany to lead the way back to common sense and fiscal sanity. The real question will be whether the rest of the Western world learns the lesson the easy way or the hard way. So far, the Obama administration seems determined for the US to learn it the hard way.

Under the guise of environmentalism, various federal agencies and departments are blocking Border Patrol agents’ access to critical areas while contributing to widespread lawlessness along the U.S. border, according to experts.

Criminals, meanwhile, are taking full advantage of the rapidly deteriorating situation.

Despite claims by the Obama administration that the American border is “safer” or “more secure” than ever, sources with knowledge of the reality on the ground say that is simply not true. In fact, as Mexico spirals deeper into chaos, conditions along the border are only getting worse — rapidly.

“Far from contained and secure, the Arizona Border remains a terribly dangerous sieve from which not only illegals enter America, but drug cartels operating as organized crime syndicates and even as terrorist cells are coming to and from across America’s supposed secure border,” noted private-sector intelligence analyst and border expert Lyle Rapacki with Sentinel Intelligence Services in an e-mailed briefing obtained by The New American.

And according to experts, the federal government itself is a major contributor to the problem. Its public-lands policies, for example, have essentially created vast “no-go” zones where the Border Patrol is barred from meaningful operations while criminals and traffickers run wild.

“Federal agencies are using environmental laws to keep agents from having unfettered access to the border and to pursue criminals on federal public land once the criminals have crossed,” Vice Chairman Zack Taylor of the National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers ( NAFBPO — symbolic badge shown above) told The New American. “The criminals have destroyed the federal public land and it makes no sense to keep Border Patrol off because it simply causes more damage.”

According to Taylor and other experts, the Department of Interior and the Department of Agriculture are the main culprits responsible for creating the dangerous situation. “It is a ploy of the open borders advocates to keep Border Patrol out and let the illegal aliens and drugs in,” he explained. “They are using the environmental protection laws to do that. That simple.”

And by restricting Border Patrol access to huge areas of public land — from Arizona and New Mexico to Montana and Idaho — the federal government is giving criminals the advantage. And they are using it to wreak havoc within America.

“If the agents cannot access the border area, they cannot patrol it,” Taylor noted. “The criminals then have an advantage and make good use of the advantage by smuggling drugs and aliens into the United States.”

Taylor said criminals occupy and monitor the vast off-limits areas to increase the chances of success in their smuggling operations. In some cases, traffickers’ networks of surveillance and communication can keep a constant view of corridors stretching from the Mexican border to Phoenix, he explained. And that makes bringing in drugs, illegal immigrants, and terrorists much simpler.

Of course, it is not just border states that are threatened. Hundreds of American cities now have active foreign-based criminal networks that operate with impunity. And very little is being done to stop it, experts say.

The press, meanwhile, has largely remained silent. “It is as if the administration has placed a gag order on them,” Taylor said. “They just won’t talk about it, much less report it.”

The state of Arizona has attempted to adopt some measures aimed at protecting citizens, but the Obama administration has responded with lawsuits and harassment. Lawmakers in the state, however, know that something must be done.

“Arizona is losing control of her sovereign land,” noted State Senator Sylvia Allen, chairman of the Arizona Senate Committee on Border Security. “Arizona is in a State of Emergency. If we want to protect our national and state sovereignty, we must secure our border and enforce our laws.”

Sen. Allen’s committee has heard testimony from citizens along the border area who reported home invasions, vandalism, theft, and a host of other criminal activities. Clearly, the state is facing a monumental crisis that needs to be addressed, she said. Yet, instead of helping, the federal government is making matters worse, according to a statement issued by Sen. Allen late last year. And the problems created by the executive branch are hardly isolated incidents.

“Why is the apparent official policy of the United States to ridicule and silence those who are trying to protect our state of Arizona?Why are the cartels protected?” she wondered. “Why do official U.S. government departments,sworn to protect American citizens, extend protection to gangs working with the drug cartels, and even to terrorists entering our nation from various border entry points?”

Sen. Allen and numerous other experts believe they know the answer — or at least part of it. The disastrous federal border policies, according to Allen, are connected to the emerging “ North American Union” — a plan to essentially “ merge” the United States with Mexico and Canada that is regularly and openly discussed by top officials including former Mexican President Vicente Fox, who told CNN that the merger is “inevitable.”

“There is a concerted, deliberate, and sophisticated program under way to erase our national boundaries and create a North American Union,” Sen. Allen explained. “The gift of sovereignty handed to us by our Forefathers would be extinguished, and we would become subjects, no longer free.”

Other critics of U.S. policies have noted the futility — insanity, perhaps — of fighting a multi-trillion-dollar terror war around the world and using the armed forces to secure land borders in Asia even as America’s own borders remain wide open for potential terrorists. Homeland Security, meanwhile, has been too busy hyping the threat of "right-wing extremism" to properly control the border. And the apparent lunacy does not end there.

The federal government is also shoveling billions of American tax dollars into the coffers of corrupt Latin American governments — purportedly to fight the “drug war” — even as narcotics flow virtually unhindered across wide swaths of the U.S. border. And if recent reports and statements by experts are to be believed, the problem goes even deeper than that.

Another controversial policy that experts say is related to the overall plan is the President’s effort to provide covert “amnesty” for millions of illegal immigrants without even obtaining approval from Congress.“We have been betrayed by our leaders in a way that I just did not think was possible,” NAFBPO [National Association of Former Border Patrol Officers] Chairman and former Assistant Chief Patrol Agent Kent Lundgren explained in an exclusive interview with the Liberty News Network.

Critics of the policies — including lawmakers nationwide, NAFBPO, and countless other concerned groups — believe it is past time to rein in the administration and put an end to the lawlessness. But as Mexico descends into a bloody civil war that is seeping across the border, the time for action may be running out.

The information comes amid reports thatWhite House staffers held regular meetings with Media Matters,which is under fire for unusual tactics, including compiling a de facto enemies list; announcing an all-out campaign of “guerrilla warfare and sabotage” aimed at the Fox News Channel; and reportedly seeking to investigate the personal lives of targeted reporters and news personalities.

The Media Matters donor list included the Pritzker Family Foundation, which donated a total of $400,000 to the progressive attack group in 2007, 2008 and 2009.

The Pritzker family is best known for owning the Hyatt hotel chain and is considered to be one of America’s wealthiest families.

The family foundation is directed by Penny Pritzker, who served as the national finance chairman of Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign.

Penny Pritzker is currently a member of the Obama’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board, which formulates and evaluates economic policy for the Obama administration.

Another top donor to Media Matters, according to the released donor list, is the Joyce Foundation. Obama served on the Joyce Foundation board from 1994 to 2002.

Joyce gave a $400,000 grant to Media Matters in 2010, purportedly to “support a gun and public safety issue initiative.”

While Obama was on the Joyce Foundation board, the organization granted tens of millions of dollars to gun control organizations. Also, numerous large grants were provided to a group called Leadership for Quality Education, which was run by John Ayers, the brother of Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers.

Also while Obama was at Joyce, the foundation gave numerous grants to the Small Schools workshop at the University of Chicago, which was founded byBill Ayers and is run by avowed communist activist Mike Klonsky, who served with Ayers in the radical Students for a Democratic Society group.

Another key funding tie for Media Matters is the Center for American Progress, led by John Podesta, who directed Obama’s White House transition team.

Media Matters reportedly entered into a fundraising-sharing agreement with the Center for American Progress, or CAP.

CAP’s extensive reports and research reportedly help to inform Obama administration policy.

A Time magazine article profiles the influence of Podesta’s Center for American Progress in the formation of the Obama administration, stating that “not since the Heritage Foundation helped guide Ronald Reagan’s transition in 1981 has a single outside group held so much sway.”

CAP has received large grants fromthe Tides Foundation, which, according to the published donor list, is the single largest donor to Media Matters, with over $4 million in donations to the progressive media attack group.

Tides is a controversial far-left clearinghouse that funds groups such as MoveOn.org, ACORN and a litany of anti-war organizations.

The Tides Foundation is funded in part by billionaire George Soros, himself a prominent Media Matters donor via his Open Society Institute.

Tides functions as a money tunnel in which major leftist donors provide large sums that are channeled to hundreds of radical groups.

Tides documentation reviewed by WND shows the group provided a total of $4.1 million to Media Matters during the fiscal years of 2004-2009.

During that same time period, Tides provided an additional $110,000 to the Media Matters Action Network, the group’s affiliated progressive lobby.

The Tides Foundation funding to Media Matters was most significant during the progressive news organization’s startup year in 2004, when Tides granted it $2.2 million.

In 2005, Tides sent another $1.1 million to Media Matters.

The years 2006 and 2007 saw smaller Tides donations of $56,223 and $38,225 respectively.

In 2008, a significant Tides donation of $659,500 came in to Media Matters, with another $106,038 in 2009.

In 2010, the Tides Center expressed public support for Media Matters when the media group stepped up its activism against Fox News by posting a Web page dedicated to anti-Fox material along with an online petition that pressed Fox’s advertisers to “Drop Fox.” At the time, Tides chief executive and founder, Drummond Pike, endorsed Media Matters’ campaign.

Media Matters already admitted to taking $1 million directly from Soros. The billionaire has donated more than $7 million to Tides over the years.

Now the revelation of Tides donations to Media Matters may raise more questions about the partiality of media group. Tides is one of the biggest financial backers of progressive and radical left groups in the U.S.

For example, Tides is a primary funder to the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, or ACORN, and is closely tied to the group implicated in voter fraud. The Tides Center’s board chairman is Wade Rathke, ACORN’s founder and chief organizer.

Tides also is a primary funder to MoveOn.org,the American Civil Liberties Union,Campaign for America’s Future; the Center for American Progress; the Center for Community Change; the socialist-leaning Democracy Now!; the Marxist-founded Free Press; and Marxist-oriented Institute for Policy Studies.

Tides has been closely linked to Occupy since the anti-Wall Street movement’s inception. The Tides-funded Adbusters magazine is reported to have come up with the Occupy Wall Street idea after Arab Spring protests toppled governments in Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. The Adbusters website serves as a central hub for Occupy’s planning.

The Tides-funded Ruckus Society has been providing direct-action training to Occupy protesters as well as official training resources, including manuals, to Occupy training groups. Ruckus, which helped spark the 1999 World Trade Organization riots in Seattle, was also listed as a “friend and partner” of the Occupy Days of Action in October.

U.S. Presidents | Politicos | Miscellaneous | AuthorsMusicians | Artists | Actors | Athletes The terms «famous» and «left-hander» are both subjective judgments. For this page, «famous» means that someone steeped in American culture will recognize most of these names, and «left-handed» is a loose common classification meaning to write with and/or use the left hand for manual tasks. A few of the people listed here might be better described as «ambidexterous». I would like to expand this list to include «famous left-handers» of many cultures and activities. YOU CAN HELP by nominating «famous left-handers» that are not included on this page: Click here to submit a new name!

Had Christy Romer gotten her way, the stimulus could have been much worse Published February 22, 2012 | By Bruce McQuain

When Larry Summers and team were preparing a memo for Barack Obama on the planned stimulus, Christina Romer was a part of the effort. The New Republic brings to light a conflict within that team about how much stimulus they should recommend. As you recall, the final recommendation included two options. Option one was a “modest” stimulus in the rage of $550 to $670 of legislated money (about the same amount that Paul Krugman first recommended). The second option was for $850 billion and was the option Obama chose.

Summers mentions in the memo that in order to make a bigger impact on the “output gap”, a stimulus of over a trillion dollars was needed but most likely “not accomplish the goal” of reducing the “output gap” because of the “impact it would have on markets”.

Romer, on the other hand, felt that closing the “output gap” was much more important than the impact such a move might have on markets and recommended a much higher stimulus. How much higher? Approximately twice the level of the highest option presented to Obama of $850 billion. That’s right, about $1.7 trillion dollars. Romer claimed that doing so would bring the unemployment rate to “5.1%”. But then, as we remember, the country was promised that if the stimulus that was eventually passed was made law, unemployment would remain under 8%.

Of course it didn’t rising to 10.5%. However the prediction came directly from the memo Summers presented to the president – $880 billion stimulus would create 3.4 million jobs and keep the unemployment rate at 7.3%.. Neither of those came true and the administration was reduced to claiming “saved” jobs in its defense.

Romer’s predictions were even rosier. She believed that a $900 billion stimulus would create 3.75 million jobs and put the unemployment rate at 6.6%. Again, not even close.

Yet, when you read the comments of others out there, you find some of them still implying that a larger stimulus would have been better for what ailed us. That our problem was the size of the stimulus, not its design.

Of course that’s patent nonsense. The stimulus failed because it was horribly designed and terribly executed. And it was aimed at the wrong things. It became a combination of slush fund for politicians and budget short-fall device for states. Where what little was aimed at it supposed purpose (creating jobs) it failed. We discovered that “shovel ready” was anything but. Additionally it was used to bail out industries government had no business bailing out.

Whether it was $900 billion or $1.7 trillion, those facts wouldn’t have changed one bit. About all that might have happened had Romer gotten her way is a few states might have been able to delay their financial reckoning for another year or so.

Noam Scheiber, the author of the TNR article (and an upcoming book on how the Obama White House “fumbled” the recovery) doesn’t go as far as to claim the larger stimulus would have been a better choice although he certainly implies it. He argues that Obama wouldn’t have proposed it because Congress – even a totally Democratic Congress – wouldn’t have passed a $1.8 trillion dollar stimulus.

However, he argues, the inclusion of the higher stimulus number would have gotten Obama to “have felt a greater sense of urgency had he better understood how far he was from the ideal.”

First, I don’t agree that a Nancy Peolosi/Harry Reid controlled Congress wouldn’t have done exactly that, i.e. passed an almost $2 trillion dollar stimulus package. One only has to remember how they steamrolled the health care bill through to doubt such a thing couldn’t have happened with a larger stimulus. Secondly, it is highly debatable that Romer’s number was any sort of an “ideal”.

It was, at most, a “best guess” and given her predictions of the effect of a $900 billion stimulus (the size eventually passed) on job creation and unemployment, it is a suspect “best guess”.

And finally, regardless of the numbers proposed, it was a terribly designed and executed program that redefined “waste, fraud and abuse”. Doubling that wouldn’t have made it better.

Unlike some out there lamenting Summers refusal to have included Romer’s recommendation, I applaud it. That doesn’t mean I agree with the number he came up with, but to use Washington DC budgetspeak, he “saved” us about a trillion dollars.